Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 4:40 am As such, it is the dismissal of all religion from public life.

I was rather referring to the inclination to insult one's own religion. Not to the low effort with which people may practice it. Of course, there are also low-effort Muslims.

The decision to open up the religion to insults, mockery, ridicule, and even blasphemy, under the guise of freedom of speech, is only a Christian one. No other religion will ever accept that.

godelian wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 8:18 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 4:40 am As such, it is the dismissal of all religion from public life.

I was rather referring to the inclination to insult one's own religion. Not to the low effort with which people may practice it. Of course, there are also low-effort Muslims.

Secularism means NOT being "religious" in any sense. It has nothing specifically to do with Christianity. And anybody who insults Christianity clearly isn't a Christian...so it's not clear how you're making that connection. But you're right in this much: that Christianity does not react with violence, repression or cruelty, even when those who despise it speak evil. It doesn't have to: it knows it's the truth. Truth always wins.

The decision to open up the religion to insults, mockery, ridicule, and even blasphemy, under the guise of freedom of speech, is only a Christian one.

You're looking at it backwards. The "religion" that cannot tolerate freedom of speech is afraid of it. It's only the strongest, most confident and most certain kind of "religion" that can regard the insults of man as trivial and powerless, and not concern itself when evil men speak evil. Only a truly confident belief in God can dismiss such railing as empty...which it is. Those who speak against God are like people who dash themselves against a rock wall: they will harm only themselves. They cannot hurt God.

On the other hand, what can we say about any "religion" that feels a need to react and lash out, instead? Why has it to depend on angry, violent men to defend their god? Why is their god not strong enough to stand for himself? Why must they immolate their opposition, or even their own people, even women and children, in a (clearly desperate) attempt to defend the honour of a god they don't believe can defend himself? Why are they so fearful of mere words...which, after all, cannot change what is true, or what is true about their god, if anything is true at all about it?

If God exists, the real God, is it not clear that those who insult Him are, in fact, harming themselves? Can they insult God, and God not hear? And would we think God is not weak, so that He cannot defend His own honour, and must depend on mere men to do it for him? But what can a mere man do, or even a group or culture of men, that God Himself cannot do? How can stupid men, with their words, or their cartoons, or their TV programs, harm God? And if God is the Judge, what good will their insults be to them in the day when judgment comes?

I would find such a 'god' too small, to weak and too nervous to be respectable. And it seems clear to me that the men who think they are stronger than the real God, and have to jump to his defense with violence, repression and tyrannical human laws are really the ones who lack faith in God.

So it seems to me.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:00 pm And anybody who insults Christianity clearly isn't a Christian...so it's not clear how you're making that connection.

These are some kind of former Christian populations that are like parasites to Christianity. They identify as people who do not believe in Christianity. They do not identify positively as people who believe in something else, because they don't. They identify non-Christians. Note that they do not identify as non-Jews or non-Muslims. They are not parasites to any other religion than to Christianity.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:00 pm It's only the strongest, most confident and most certain kind of "religion" that can regard the insults of man as trivial and powerless, and not concern itself when evil men speak evil. Only a truly confident belief in God can dismiss such railing as empty...which it is.

You're again wading through the shallow coastal waters of Christian Lalaland. You have trouble accepting reality, don't you? There are going to be people who react aggressively to insults to their religion. Welcome to the real world! In all practical terms, how do you deal with that? At least, the Papacy has advised something that is much more realistic than what you are advocating: "If you really feel the need, then beat them up with your fists! But don't kill them!"

When they insult Islam, it's better that the secular authorities rush to the scene and quickly take the insulter into protective custody, because we obviously want to avoid dead bodies. In countries that allow for that, extract from the culprit a retraction, an apology, and some kind of monetary fine or so. That should allow law enforcement to carefully release the culprit back into the wild. Not sure, though.

godelian wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:32 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:00 pm And anybody who insults Christianity clearly isn't a Christian...so it's not clear how you're making that connection.

These are some kind of former Christian populations ...

What makes you think they were ever "Christians" at all? According to the definition of "Christian," one needs to believe. They don't.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:00 pm It's only the strongest, most confident and most certain kind of "religion" that can regard the insults of man as trivial and powerless, and not concern itself when evil men speak evil. Only a truly confident belief in God can dismiss such railing as empty...which it is.

There are going to be people who react aggressively to insults to their religion.

Yes, there are very silly people who will do that...insecure cowards, really, those who have not really thought this through, and who thus really don't believe their god has any power. Of course they will. And Christians will tolerate those cowards, just as they tolerate the secularists...because they're really no danger to God at all. They only hurt themselves.

Nothing could more clearly say, "I don't think my god has any power" than immolating oneself, or murdering dissenters, or throwing one's women and chiildren into the meat-grinder of war, in some vain and desperate effort to protect that god. That shows a total lack of confidence.

So where is that "god"? Why is it so timorous that it wants to be defended, but cannot do it itself? This is clearly not any god.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:43 pm What makes you think they were ever "Christians" at all? According to the definition of "Christian," one needs to believe. They don't.

So, what are they, if not non-Christians?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:43 pm Yes, there are very silly people who will do that...

Doesn't matter. In the end, what matters, is how the world is, and not how you believe that the world should be. That is, in fact, the generalized problem of Christian Lalaland, i.e. living in a fantasy. Furthermore, your beliefs of how the world should be, do not even add up. You do not take into account second-order consequences. You certainly do not take into account what incentive structure that you would be creating.

It's like the entire idea of no-fault divorce and paying alimony and/or child support to an ex-wife, along with division of the man's assets. By rolling out that system, they ended up with the most perverse incentive structure ever devised in the history of mankind. This perverse incentive structure even has the capacity to destroy western civilization. But then again, good riddance, anyway.

So, I am not going to advise other people what to do, or what not to do, based on some nonsensical untested delusions.

godelian wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:56 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:43 pm What makes you think they were ever "Christians" at all? According to the definition of "Christian," one needs to believe. They don't.

So, what are they, if not non-Christians?

Non-Muslims, non-Hindus, non-Buddhists, non-anythings. They don't imagine there are any gods at all, and thus worship themselves only.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 2:43 pm Yes, there are very silly people who will do that...

Doesn't matter. In the end, what matters, is how the world is, and not how you believe that the world should be.

I'm "imagining" it exactly as it is: full of those sorts of people. What are you "imagining"?

"There are going to be people who react aggressively to insults to their religion." - G. Dawg

And that's exactly how it is, IC. U have to consider this if u are able. That if violence is warranted by a god that a people believe in, u can't indict them for being immoral. U might not like or agree with what they're doing, but only if u could provide a proof that what they're doing is immoral without using another religion to do so... becuz... it too could be wrong. U have to use a nonreligious critique of religious morality or else your foundation is disqualified.

That's the missing scale in the mannie dragon.

The veracity of evidences for the divine contacts between god and/or angels and human beings (prophets) of different religions is qualitatively the same... so one couldn't ever be a disproof or refutation of another regarding those matter. Sure, as historical accounts of ordinary physical events like wars and exoduses and all that, one religion may very well be able to disprove the other by verifiable facts.

But not in the case of the nature of cammandments or instructions or any of that stuff.

U sayin' it's the will of god tryna stop islam is the same thing as a muslim sayin it's the will of god tryna stop christianity. U feel me?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 6:15 pm "There are going to be people who react aggressively to insults to their religion." - G. Dawg

And that's exactly how it is, IC.

Did I ever suggest it was otherwise?

But I submit to you that while such are always around, they are actually insulting their 'god' by doing it. They're really saying, "Our god is so weak that he can't defend his name, and needs poor little men like us to defend him by flying planeloads of civilians into towers," or "Our god can't keep control of his empire or of his third capital city, so we have to murder all the Jews," or even "Our god needs us to sacrifice all the Palestinian women and children to the war we have to start to defend the god who can't defend himself."

These things do not make such a god look good, or powerful, or worthy of any admiration. And now they say, "We can't even allow dissent, or a silly cartoon, or even an imaginative picture, because it will hurt our god's feelings, but he's not able to deal with that himself, so we have to kill people for him."

It's really a kind of blasphemy against their own god. What kind of an entity is he, if he can't do without a host of lunatic jihadis having hissy fits and spinning off into murdering civilians to defend his honour? And who finds that kind of thing winsome?

A variation of anselmish logic i see. Very clever. However, only if u could show that allah allowing such things to happen is necessarily a sign of weakness or imperfection rather than just, say, a simple choice (for whatever his reasons) on his part. Mysterious ways and all that.

U see what I'm tryna say, IC? U could say that all that jihadist stuff is evidence that such a god were flawed or imperfect, but not necessarily so. There is one other option; a perfect and unflawed god has created what we perceive as all this horrible stuff, for some reason, but not becuz he had to. There's a difference, haus.

The existence of evil argument is not enough to show that god isn't benevolent. Same defense u christians use only a different god. U use it when it favors u but not when it favors another religion? Absolutely shameless.